Growing Old Disgracefully

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Glancing up from my desk at work the other day, I saw an old lady with thinning hair and a cane, and with dyed hair. I’m not sure if it was maroon or brown or some shade of dark, dark pink. Anyhoo, it got me thinking about my own inevitable decline into senility and inability and I came up with options for myself:

The Golden Girls

What colour will you dye your hair when you decide that too much grey really is too much?

  • Blue
  • Pink
  • Purple
  • Green?
  • Black – I refuse to grow old

Which preferred method of transport will you allow yourself to succumb to?

  • Limousine
  • Push-Walker
  • Wheelchair
  • Scooter Chair
  • Hover Mover – because they would have invented that by the time I get old

muppets

As my body shrivels and cries out for moisture (essence of wetness), I know what I will be constantly slurping. What about you?

  • Tea
  • Champagne
  • Gin
  • Other – not worth naming

When our minds are the sharpest part of our bodies, what will be your preferred card game to skewer your fellow captives at whatever retirement option you find yourself in?

  • Spades
  • ‎Rummy
  • Crazy Eights
  • 500
  • Bridge
  • Cribbage
  • Pinochle
  • Solitaire
  • Cheat
  • I Doubt It
  • Bullshit – apparently this is an actual game

bucket-list

Provided you still retain the use of your extremities and your hands, in particular, aren’t too arthritic, what will be your fave thing to Knit/crochet?

  • Baby booties
  • Beanies
  • Viking hats with attached beards
  • Lap blankets
  • Afghans
  • Rude pictures of Donald Trump
  • Mermaid tale blankets
  • Wine koozies
  • Teapot koozies
  • Cooter koozies

calendar-girls

What will you do with your boobs?

  • Tie them in a knot
  • Tie them in a bow
  • Toss them over your shoulder
  • Get a nip and tuck so they look like hairless eyebrows
  • Get an enlargement – I refuse to grow old

tatie-danielle

Are you are waiting til old age to do any or all of the following?

  • Get your first tattoo
  • Get a piercing (perhaps these options won’t hurt as much when you have less sensory perception in your body)
  • Stay late and sleep at Ikea

How will you pass the time when all your friends are dead or dying?

  • Go back to school
  • Go back to bed
  • Stay out in the garden
  • Stay out all night

gran-torino

Let’s assume you will need and therefore get, a cane. It’s perhaps a little more regal than a push walker. You choose a cane tip that best suits your personality by getting

  • A middle finger, perhaps from an actual skeleton
  • The skull of your first husband
  • A spider encased in resin
  • A mosquito encased in amber

If you can still see well enough to pilot a vehicle, which car best suits your proclivities?

  • A smooth, spendy ride
  • A motorbike – no need for an overly large windscreen when you probably need the extra protein in your diet
  • A muscle car, no suspension – you’ll be happy to feel every bump in the road while you’re still alive to feel them
  • A monster truck – sure, you’re looking for excitement but at your age, it’s still hard to see over the traffic

miss-marple

Little old ladies and gentlemen often have collections, and I dare say mine will be something to distract me from my vertical deterioration. Will yours be

  • Decorative collars, RBG-style
  • Powdered wigs
  • Commemorative mugs
  • Decorative teaspoons
  • Stamps, coins, exotic postcards
  • A trail of broken hearts
  • A list of faux friends who died before you
  • Boyfriends still alive
  • Boyfriends will energetic enough to warrant the term

Levity aside, we all need to think of our “arrangements” at some point…

  • Standard coffin
  • Pimped coffin
  • Ice-cream freezer
  • Forget going in a box of any kind, just compress your cremains into a diamond on a piece of jewellery for your Daughter-In-Law, because even in death, you want the last word

ned-devine

Exit strategy – perhaps you’re indeed, next level and consider taking things into your own hands after a long and enjoyable life…

  • Gravitron
  • Skydiving – you either die in the air or when you hit the ground (going out with a bang, anyone?)
  • Massage chair set on the max setting

I dig the massage chair myself, I wouldn’t subject an actual person to pummeling me to death, though.

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When Husband and I got married, we had a photo sent to the local Irish newspaper for expats. We thought it would be a nice little corner shot – above the fold, a filler piece. It ended up being a yuuuge photo and a nice surprise. I’ve got a copy of the newspaper floating around here somewhere.

Anyhoo, I wrote an article I Proposed On The First Date and it was picked up by PopSugar for Valentine’s Day, which was awesome. Then a newspaper contacted me for an interview, which I did, cue publicists sighing over newbies,  and now I’m just waiting for someone to contact me about the next big reality tv – straight to DVD movie version of our lives.

If Tom Hardy’s agent sees this – Husband is on board and available for character nuance rehearsal and tips for an aussie accent. He loves the bearded look, too.

But who would play me? Husband (begged for) suggested Penelope Cruz. I’m just not that foxy; we compromised on Rachel McAdams. I love her and I think she’s got a certain amount of sass which would be great. Of course, big name celebs may not be available for straight to DVD movies, these days. Coronation Street? Eastenders? Neighbours? Home And Away? We should probably be finding our doppelgangers from the next level of up-and-coming actors. In the mean time, I’ll be polishing my own acting chops for “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here”.

I Tell You What

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I’m reading a great book and obvs there’s plot twists and depths of layers, but one thing that’s pissing me off is the guy getting pissed off and insulting the girl’s living situation. She’s self-made and doing things on her own terms and he comes in and thinks it’s all nothing. It’s insulting and making me so fucking angry, because I’ve seen that shit irl, too. 

When you don’t have to answer to anyone else and you’ve got things going on in your life that you’re taking care of, and because it doesn’t fit perfectly into a little square box with an ideal bow, then it’s worthless. Fuck off, judgmental assholes.

That is all.

A Monologue 

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Yesterday, Husband and I went to see The Vagina Monologues. I’d heard of it but didn’t know the content, didn’t know if it was a play or what the deal was. Was it going to be funny? Some sort of off-beat love story? *spoilers*

These probably aren’t spoilers since there’s no plot, per se. Funnily enough, it was a bunch of monologues – personal stories, statistics, statements of fact. Amazing acting, poignant and hilarious. 

Everyone could agree with lots of the content, could relate to the stories and commiserate with the facts. I’m sure it was eye-opening for some, if not all of the men present in the audience. But I did not like to see them nodding or commiserating. They don’t know! They can never know. Of course, that is a brash generalization and perhaps they do know, if their mother/sister/someone has been treated in a way touched on during the show. 

I wished that there were no men in the audience so the women could have this to themselves, to celebrate their bodies and take back what is sometimes a dirty, rarely-spoken word, and to commiserate and share stories of terrible things perpetrated by men. I wished that the men would look each other in the eye and realise that they do these things and make people feel this way and be resolute to change, instead of clapping a hand on their partner’s knee and making sad faces as if that’s all that can be done.

There were volunteers before and after the show to let the audience know about survivor services in the area, and that was certainly eye-opening to me. I’ve seen a few big-name movies (Stolen, 2011 w Ryan Reynolds; Trade, 2007 w Kevin Kline) about trafficking but hearing about it in my local area is awful. The I5 corridor is apparently filthy for trafficking and slavery.

There was also a birth story, and one from transgender people. All powerful in different ways. I highly enjoyed the show and can’t recommend it enough.

Bearded Lady

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The other day I was the bearded lady. Not because I was going a la naturale or forgot to wax my raging lady mo, but because I drew a beard and stuck on a mo.

There was a competition to dress as your fave rockNroller at the local skating rink; too bad no other bastard dressed up. Anyhoo,  I rocked the facial hair and also the double-takes. There were plenty of both.

It’s funny the looks I received – obvs some weird looks from ‘ophobes of some kind or another, but also some ahem looks from ladies interested in my action. I don’t normally get that much interest.

It was fun to hide behind a different face and I think the same applies to other aspects of life – but it boils down to taking chances and trying something new. I’m not going to stop waxing but I can rest assured that if I do, I’ve got options.

Another Vagina Craft

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K, so I had another vagina craft and it was wonderful.

It’s Thursday so less people could come, ha! But I hope and I think that the people who did, had a fun time. Wine, cupcakes, crackers and aphrodisiacs, usually equal a good time. We were also productive

And shiny

Happy Valentine’s Day.

A Month Of Letters

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It’s that time again, where I start off the year with a list of randoms that I send missives to for no other reason than to spread some love. This year I’m sending books that no one seems to want. I’ve donated books to the local women’s shelter before, and I had planned to send some to a library in a rural area that needed more but they were inundated, so.

It’s day two and so far, I’m on track. Last year or maybe the year before, I sent letters to people I found on whitepages online with the same surname and found a long lost relative! She and my mum keep in touch because they both do genealogy. Feel good story of the year. This year I’m hoping the books make someone’s day. Sending them certainly makes mine. I’m not sending my Stephen Kings, John Marsden or Jane Austens, and a bunch of others, but I have plenty of books that I won’t reread and they will make a nice surprise someone’s mailbox. Maybe this year I will get a reply.

Ces in Albury

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We were watching The Castle the other day and the old neighbour, Jack, reminded me of a man named Ces who my parents lived next door to when they bought their first house in Albury, NSW. We would visit him occasionally when we drove back from our house in the way outer burbs of Sydney, and he was old. I was young so he was way old, but he was busy. His entire backyard was a vegetable patch and all the veges were fucking huge, like newspaper article-worthy huge. And his front room and I think other rooms, eventually, had shelves for displaying his enormous collection of plates.

I never knew his last name, and he eventually died. I don’t know if he married and lost a wife, or ever had kids. I’ve googled him a few times because I thought I ought to remember him better, but I haven’t been able to find anything about him, and I feel sorry about that. Of course, he must have died thirty years ago, but I thought that there would be a scrap of old newspaper article transferred online or something, but I haven’t found it.

plates

This is actually from a Guiness World Record in 2012, but you get the idea. He had a shit ton of plates.

Ideas Man

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Did you used to pretend that you were someone else? Not necessarily (hopefully not) because you didn’t want to be you anymore, but because it was fun to pretend.

dorothy

From The Golden Girls, I was Dorothy Spornak because she was the funniest, in my opinion, and in Friends, I was Rachel because I liked her hair the best and had the same coloured hair, whereas my other friends had dark hair like Monica and blonde hair like Phoebe. In the aussie movie The Castle, I am often compared to one of them and it’s not who you might think. Mum?

the-castle1

No. Trace? No. I’m Steve, AKA the “Ideas Man” and that’s him on the end, standing there like he mean’s business. Yep, that’s me, the Ideas Man in our family. I like to think I’ve got better hair, but maybe that’s only because everyone does twenty years later. My ideas include but are not limited to plots and characters for novels, obvs, lists of presents (admittedly I dropped the ball this past Christmas), family adventures (getting married not once but three times was my idea, driving to OK in a cold AF bus during Thanksgiving, random – possibly idiotic – projects around the house like digging unnecessary holes, building jungle forts that the kids apparently will never fucking use even though they absolutely loved the idea, super fun birthday parties, you name it, I’ve already suggested it), and personal adventures (drinking wine at home, at bars, at other people’s houses, dressing up and going out, dressing up and staying home, making dress-up clothes and occasionally biting off more than I can chew).

So yeah, I’m Steve. But in other movies, I can be not Steve. Like in The Lake House – obvs I’m Sandra Bullock who sits around (figuratively, she’s a dr ffs) pining for Keanu. Gets me every time.

In Boys On The Side I was Drew Barrymore’s character and I still love that hair.

drew

Thankfully, I don’t get into the sort of trouble that her character did.

Hmm, what else? Apparently, we never go to the movies and I can’t remember anything we might have watched in the last decade. Trainwreck? Deadpool? Wallace and Gromit? No, I’m coming up empty and I can’t remember any of the other hilarious comparisons we made in high school. They were spot on but my goldfish brain has lost them. Maye that means I’m Goldie Hawn from Overboard.

sexy-goldie

Wow, that’s not what I meant.

goldie-hawn

That’s more like it.

Anyhoo, movies, the great escapist pleasure. Go figure.